BPDFamily.com

Hello, my wife was diagnosed several weeks ago with BPD and severe depression.  She has since received a lot of great help, and is receiving weekly telehealth consults with a therapist.  It seems she is on a healing path.  We also plan couples therapy.  Also, we are codependent.

I want to support her return to functionality by providing her with a great relationship, which I understand is one of the main factors contributing to long-term remission.  I have read a lot online, signed up for a future online workshop, have several books to read, and have embarked on a journey of non-religious buddhism.

I want to find my own therapist so I can work through my own anger, sadness, and numbness from nine years of her behavior.  I want to be truly present for her, so I can be compassionate, and help her with her suffering.  To do this, I must relearn to love myself, and undo all the knots in my mind this has caused.

So my question: How can I find a therapist for myself?  How did you find your therapist?  I think I want to find a therapist who is very experienced with BPD.  What other experience would you recommend in a therapist, so I can find a good match?

I wish you well, thank you all for being here for me.  It is greatly appreciated.

I went to therapy with different therapists. It was the last therapist that was the right fit and she was my therapist for many years. I come from a large family with many disordered members. I wanted a therapist who was happily married and a good mother to her children, a role model for me on how to have healthy relationships. I asked without being too intrusive questions like how old she was, how many years she had been married, the ages of her children, etc. I also was looking for an EMDR therapist which she was. What do you want in a therapist and what questions would you ask while interviewing therapists? I did several interviews and many therapists were not a fit. I would say be prepared to interview several therapists so you can compare what you have learned. Notice how you feel when talking to a potential therapist as our gut feelings are usually better clues as to what kind of person we are dealing with than what we tell ourselves.

Thank you for this insight.  I think I have been wasting time on parametric online searches, looking for a perfect fit without success, when I should be out more actively 'shopping'.  This is my main takaway from your reply. 

I think my new tactic will be to reach out to many therapists, maybe using only their previous experience with BPD as a filter.  It's like shopping for any professional services, which should have been obvious to me.  My mind is somewhat overloaded with all the new information about mental illness I am trying to learn as fast as possible. 

Filtering for BPD, and structuring an interview, I can ask open ended questions and see if a therapist's responses are a good fit. 

Thank you for this, it is greatly appreciated.